But...
And here was the sticking point, the secret wish she could never confide in anyone else, and which felt almost too dreadful to hope for. I can never be Mrs Gale and an author. It was impossible enough to presume she could be a spinsterly Miss Turner and still publish, but the dream of becoming an author would be entirely lost to her if she became mistress to an estate. It is all I have ever wanted, she thought, her heart turning a somersault as she watched the animation flicker across Edmund’s face as he encouraged Bess to explain a musical event she had seen advertised and clearly had some wish to attend. His boyish smile and dark curls - that would persist in forever being unruly, no matter how much attention he paid to them - made it almost incongruous to her to connect her friend with the lofty title of gentleman, yet she knew he was, and destined for great things, for he had inherited his goodness, as well as his wealth, from his lately departed father.
He deserves far better than I could ever offer him, she reminded herself, determined to keep to her decision. It was weakness on her part to still cling to some dream where they might one day be together and, knowing that, she must do all she could to persuade him out of his boyish affection for her. Better he settle on another, more ladylike, companion and please both his mother and his status in life. If she must be cruel enough to him that he ceased to love her then she would do it. Better to make the break now than when it is too late.
Tears swam in Juliet’s eyes, blurring her vision, and she knew this time they were nothing to do with the pain in her hand, but that in her heart. She loved Edmund, and if he ever chanced to propose to her again she knew she would not be able to resist giving the answer that was always on the very tip of her tongue. It was better, then, to keep him at a distance, be thought prickly and bad-tempered, if that was what it took to ensure he never asked her again.
He looked up, then, his gaze meeting hers in a sudden, silent question. The corners of his mouth lifted in a tentative smile, and she looked away, certain that the truth of her feelings would be only too plainly resting on her features, betraying her to the very man she wished to keep away.
Chapter Four
The clouds had swept even further in by the time Edmund’s carriage lurched to a stop outside Aston House.
“Here we are!” he said, cheerfully hopping down and reaching up to help out his guests. Bess gratefully took the assistance offered, before hurrying indoors to avoid getting any further soaking from the rain which had begun again in earnest. When he turned back to help Juliet she was already half out of the carriage and half-fell in her attempt to avoid taking the hand he offered her.
“What is the matter?” he asked, irritation fast outweighing any kind of amusement he might otherwise feel at the sight of his friend cling so fervently to her independence. “You say there’s no problem but yet you act as if I have personally wronged you. Tell me, do, and let me make amends.”
“There’s nothing to make amends for -” Juliet began, until he stopped her on the porch, scarcely noticing the rain.
“We have never played games like this with one another, Juliet! Have we not always been honest? We say what we mean, always, even if it means being blunt at times.”
“Well, then may I say, bluntly, that you are ensuring we both get wet. Come inside and stop being idiotic.”
The word stung and Edmund released his grip on her immediately, allowing her to hurry indoors. He followed after her, shaking the droplets of rain out of his hair and willing his features not to betray the hurt he felt at such a stark dismissal. Juliet had always had a temper. It was part of her charm, and he had spent many an afternoon baiting her. But lately, it had not felt like a game and he began to wonder if she cared for him at all.
“Ah, Mr Gale!”
Mr Turner had joined his family in the parlour and greeted Edmund with a warm handshake. “I must thank you for returning my daughters to me in one piece. At least, almost in one piece.” He peered over at Juliet, who was holding her hand up to the fire, dabbing at it cautiously with Bess’s handkerchief. “What have you been about, Jules?”
“I dropped a glass,” she replied, wincing as she clenched her hand into a fist.
“Well, do not go making it worse, for goodness’ sake!” Louisa leapt into the fray, summoning a bowl of water and clean cloth and bidding her sister sit by the fire and let someone with a little delicacy tend to it.
Edmund hid his smirk behind his hand at the sight of Juliet being so adroitly ordered around by Louisa and Bess, who had both taken the invalid under their wings and were fussing around her fit to cause another eruption, this time not at him.
“How are you, Ed?” Mr Turner asked, gesturing to him to take the chair nearest him and leave the young ladies to their business. “I hope we did not unduly upset your plans for the day by despatching you out in search of waifs and strays.”
“Not at all,” Edmund said, with a smile. He liked Mr Turner, and he more than liked the kindly way the older gentleman addressed him, ushering him into the family as if he were a son and not merely a neighbour. Still smarting from the loss of his father, Edmund could not dispute that it meant a lot to have some semblance of a paternal relationship here, for home felt empty at times, and Aston House never did.
“I see Mr Weston could not be persuaded to accompany you.” An unreadable expression flickered momentarily across Mr Turner’s face and, not for the first time, Edmund began to wonder if he entirely approved of Edmund’s friends. He had invited three to stay with him just before Christmas in a failed attempt to find a husband from amongst them for Juliet’s older sister, Madeline. Juliet had had her own plans for Maddy’s heart, and the two had sparred and quarrelled and succeeded in neither one of their chosen suitors’ interests. Maddy had met a match entirely of her own accord, a new investor to Castleford, and the new Mr and Mrs Hodge seemed very happily wed indeed. Edmund had cheerfully seen two of his three friends back to London, but Nash remained, ostensibly because he so enjoyed Edmund’s friendship and Mrs Gale’s hospitality, but nobody could have missed the reverence he paid towards Miss Louisa Turner, nor the regularity with which he called here to pay it.
“I hope he has not outstayed his welcome,” Edmund said, in a low voice. He dropped his hand to the side table between him and Mr Turner, idly picking up a pack of cards that sat there, untouched, and shuffling them from one hand to the other. “You have my full blessing to send him back across the field if so.” He chuckled at the thought of Nash facing so unceremonious a dismissal. He was not sure he had ever had anything other than a warm welcome wherever he went, for Nash was as charming as he was handsome, and it was this that had enabled him to move in circles rather more elevated than his meagre personal fortune might otherwise have afforded.
“No, no.” Mr Turner tapped the table, a silent invitation that Edmund understood and knew well. He dealt two hands of vingt-et-un and consulted his cards, waiting for Mr Turner’s instructions. They played a quiet game or two and the parlour lapsed into quiet, punctuated only by whispered conversations here and there, until Bess stood and made her way circumspectly to the piano, picking out a quiet, careful tune. The action brought to mind the conversation she had had with Edmund in the carriage on the way back from Castleford, and he laid down his cards, turning to survey her with a little more care.
“What was the name of that musician fellow you mentioned this afternoon, Bess? Culthorpe?” He deliberately mistook his name, allowing Bess to correct him that he knew she would be unable to resist.
“Cluett,” Beth said, her attention still fixed on the piano keys.
“Cluett!” Edmund turned his face towards Nash, who was sitting very still and patiently allowing Louisa to sketch him. “Nash, do you recognise the name? I feel sure we met in London last year. He is quite the talk of Castleford, and I wonder how they managed to secure him to perform here. It shall be quite a draw I think.”
“I care little for musicians,” Nash said, taking care to scarcely open his mou
th and so to disturb the picture for his artist.
Edmund rolled his eyes, unsurprised and yet a little affronted by this bald-faced lie. His friend cared plenty for musicians in London and lost his heart to opera singers with alarming regularity. Judging from his lovesickness around Louisa, of course, this was perhaps not the best time to recall this matter to mind.
“He is a musician, then, this Culthorpe?” Mr Turner asked.
“Cluett,” Bess corrected, accentuating the word with a fumbled chord. “He is very talented.” She blinked, frowning a little as if thinking that this might not be the prevailing opinion. “At least, I think so.” Abandoning her attempt to play at all, she swivelled on her seat and turned to regard her father with a pleading expression. “He is to play a selection of his most popular pieces and - this is most thrilling of all - the first movement of an entirely new symphony. May we - do you think, I mean, if it is not too extravagant, might we go?”
Mr Turner’s expression softened, for Bess was the favourite of his four daughters and so rarely asked for anything that he was already half-persuaded to grant her wish, regardless of difficulty or cost.
“I shall make some enquiries,” Mr Turner declared, setting down his cards and getting to his feet. He shuffled towards the door as if intending to make enquiries that very instant.
Bess’s move towards the piano and Louisa’s attention to her sketchbook had left a space open on the sofa beside Juliet and Edmund took a slow circuit of the room before happening upon it, apparently entirely by chance.
“How is the poor hand?” he asked, with comically exaggerated concern. He saw Juliet’s free hand drum listlessly on the notebook she seemed largely inseparable from, forever scribbling notes in.
“It keeps me from writing,” she said, with a sigh. “But it is my own silly fault.” She leaned her shoulder against his, a momentary bump, an apology. “I’m sorry for being so cross with you. It was kind of you to come and fetch us home. Bess and I would have been drenched if left to walk.”
Edmund smiled, despite himself. He knew he ought not to be so quick to forgive his friend, but he never had been able to bear a grudge against her, particularly when she was so quick to acknowledge her faults if given time enough to realise them.
“I have been told my penmanship is quite neat and readable,” he said, reaching towards the book. “Why not let me take dictation? Then you may write without actually having to hold a pen.”
“Ha!” Juliet swept the book aside, hiding it under her skirts before he could do more than brush the leather-bound cover. “A very clever ploy, Mr Gale, but I see through it. You shall have to find another way to know what I am writing.”
“Well, I tried asking outright, and that has got me nowhere,” Edmund said, with a glum shrug of his shoulders. “You might tell a fellow, you know. It is not as if I have ever been anything but kind to you -”
“And teased me and taunted me when you thought you knew something I did not.” Her eyes flashed but this time with fun rather than anger. “Do not worry, when I am ready to share my genius with the world you shall be amongst the first to read it.”
This was as much encouragement as Edmund had ever received that Juliet would one day trust him enough to share her innermost secrets and he smiled, buoyed by their renewed friendship until Juliet nudged him again, a little more forcefully this time.
“Go and make yourself useful, will you? Turn Bess’s pages for her. She likes you and will no doubt be wild to hear your recollections of Mr Cluett.” A strange smile crept onto her face, the light in her eyes rowing. “Do you really know him?”
“I have met him,” Edmund said, evasively. “I would not claim to know him well.”
“Pity.” Juliet sighed, leaning back and flicking her gaze to the fire. “It would be quite a nice surprise for Bess if you did. Imagine, the chance to dine with a bona fide composer. She would be delirious!”
Edmund smiled, but the gears of his mind were already working on a plan to make Juliet’s suggestion a reality as he reached Bess’s side. It could be done, surely, and easily enough. It would be a kindness to Bess and heavens knew she was deserving of every kind of kindness.
And more than that, it may soften Juliet to me a little more. Edmund smiled wordlessly at Bess, turning a page when she nodded at him. Surely she knows how I care for her, and not only her but her whole family. They are my family too, right enough, even if not by law. Yet. Still, it could not hurt to remind her just how much he cared for every one of her sisters, and her...
THE DOOR TO THE SMALL room that Christopher had co-opted as his music room flew open, banging noisily back against the wall.
“Oh! Sorry.” Rosemary dimpled at him, suggesting that she was not sorry at all. “I hope I’m not interrupting you?”
“You aren’t.” Christopher did not look up from his position hunched over the table staring at a blank page of manuscript paper. “But as you spent five minutes crouched by the door listening before making your entrance, I would assume you knew that.”
“I had my suspicions,” Rosemary confessed, rumpling her brother’s hair as she passed him. This was enough to make him straighten, annoyed, and smooth a hand through his brown locks. He glared at his sister as she folded herself daintily into a chair opposite him, her hands clasped around a piece of paper and an air of expectancy about her.
“Well?” he asked. “I gather you have some intelligence to impart.”
“I do!” Rosemary thrust the card at him before impatiently snatching it back and reading its contents aloud when he did not respond as quickly as she desired him to.
“Mr Edmund Gale requests our attendance at a small dinner he is holding with some friends at Northridge Place.”
Christopher frowned, reaching a hand up to rub the back of his neck.
“And we are to go,” Rosemary continued. “I have replied on behalf of us both saying that we would be delighted, and it is very kind of him to invite us, and so on.” She dropped the card back down on the table in front of her brother. “You don’t mind, do you?”
“It is a little late to ask me that now,” Christopher pointed out, casting an eye over the invitation. Gale. He thought he knew the name but could scarcely place it, and it was on the tip of his tongue to enquire as to its owner when Rosemary, foreseeing his question, answered it.
“I do not know Mr Gale. I assumed he was a friend of yours. Is he an acquaintance from London?”
This was enough to spark a memory and Christopher nodded, vaguely running a hand over his face. Had he not met a Mr Gale at a party? He could not recall. I cannot recall above half the people I was introduced to in London, he realised, with a flash of guilt. So many had seemed beneath his notice, for whilst he crossed paths with a great many musical aficionados he met few whose opinion he actually cared for and fewer still he strove to stay in contact with after leaving the country.
“We are vague acquaintances,” Christopher allowed, dismissing any further questions by tapping the invitation. “And I suppose, now, we shall know one another better.” He sighed, not entirely rejoicing at the prospect of an evening spent amongst strangers and near-strangers.
“Good.” Rosemary made no move as if to leave, and Christopher looked pointedly towards the door. Oblivious to his hints, though, she leaned back in her chair, peering over the table at the blank paper in front of him. “How goes your progress?”
“Slowly,” he grumbled. Slower still with all these interruptions! This, he would not say aloud, for fear of hurting his sister’s feelings, but also because he was only too aware of the untruth of it. Rosemary had done her utmost to keep to her rooms and leave him to work in peace. Indeed, she must have walked miles around Castleford alone to give him free rein of their small house, but still, he made little progress.
“Play me something,” she said, sensing the dark turn his mood had taken and seeking, as she always did, to lighten it.
“Rose,” he began.
“Not something you
are working on. It doesn’t even have to be yours. Just play me something light and pretty.” She widened her eyes, feigning a pout that still worked to tug at his heartstrings the very way it had when she had been small and he, her older brother, had been tasked with cheering her up after some heartbreak or another of the kind that only ever befalls very small children. “Please?”
“If I do, will you leave me be?”
“I will!” she declared. “I promise. After all, you shall need to work doubly hard if you are to enjoy an evening of society!” she put a particular emphasis on the word society as if to elevate the home of the mysterious Mr Gale away and above any other company they had been fortunate enough to dine with thus far in Castleford and its environs. Cristopher was not oblivious to his sister’s enforced isolation. It was he that spurned company, and gregarious Rosemary was kept from it out of loyalty to him. He could give her this one thing, one evening with people who might become friends. He sighed. And he might manage to play her a thing or two this instant if only to keep her temper sweet for the long afternoon she would have to endure without him for company.
“Very well.” He shifted over to the piano stool, fidgeting it this way and that, shuffling through his music until he heard his sister huff a little behind him, impatient with his less-than-subtle attempts at procrastination.
Taking a breath, he spread his fingers over the notes and, willing them not to tremble, began to play.
A Spring Serenade Page 3